The ancient deity most strongly embraced by modern transgender culture is (or her later incarnation, Ishtar). Because she possessed the divine me (power) to invert gender, modern trans women often look to Inanna as a validation that their existence has a sacred precedent. Similarly, the Hurrian goddess Šauška , a deity of love and war like Inanna, was explicitly believed to have the ability to turn men into women and women into men. This is not a modern interpretation projected onto the past; it is the literal belief of the people who wrote the cuneiform tablets.

: Modern practitioners often argue that if God is infinite, then God cannot be limited by a human gender binary.

This composite form of Shiva and his consort Parvati represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies. Ardhanarishvara is depicted as half-male and half-female, signifying that the divine essence is beyond gender boundaries.